France's lower house of parliament has overwhelmingly approved a bill that would ban wearing the Islamic full veil in public.There were 335 votes for the bill and only one against in the 557-seat National Assembly.It must now be ratified by the Senate in September to become law.The ban has strong public support but critics point out that only a tiny minority of French Muslims wear the full veil.Many of the opposition Socialists, who originally wanted the ban limited only to public buildings, abstained from voting after coming under pressure from feminist supporters of the bill.President Nicolas Sarkozy has backed the ban as part of a wider debate on French identity but critics say the government is pandering to far-right voters.

Muslim headscarves

The word hijab comes from the Arabic for veil and is used to describe the headscarves worn by Muslim women. These scarves come in a myriad of styles and colours. The type most commonly worn in the West is a square scarf that covers the head and neck but leaves the face clear. The niqab is a veil for the face that leaves the area around the eyes clear. However, it may be worn with a separate eye veil. It is worn with an accompanying headscarf. The burka is the most concealing of all Islamic veils. It covers the entire face and body, leaving just a mesh screen to see through. The al-amira is a two-piece veil. It consists of a close fitting cap, usually made from cotton or polyester, and an accompanying tube-like scarf. The shayla is a long, rectangular scarf popular in the Gulf region. It is wrapped around the head and tucked or pinned in place at the shoulders. The khimar is a long, cape-like veil that hangs down to just above the waist. It covers the hair, neck and shoulders completely, but leaves the face clear. The chador, worn by many Iranian women when outside the house, is a full-body cloak. It is often accompanied by a smaller headscarf underneath.

After the vote, Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said it was a victory for democracy and for French values."Values of freedom against all the oppressions which try to humiliate individuals; values of equality between men and women, against those who push for inequality and injustice."The vote is being closely watched in other countries, the BBC's Christian Fraser reports from the French capital Paris.Spain and Belgium are debating similar legislation, and with such large-scale immigration in the past 20 or 30 years, identity has become a popular theme across Europe, our correspondent says.

It's interesting that some countries force women to wear the burka (IMO it is oppressive to do so) and now other countries like France will force them NOT to wear one.

Kind of ironic really, stop women being oppressed because of restrictions on what they can wear... by restricting what they can wear.

It only annoys me when they don't have to abide by work uniform like the rest of us, there's a girl at work who wears one and basically all her own clothes whilst I'm looking like a tit in a shirt and tie, not fair.

I think it's ridiculous that we are now banning people from wearing the clothes they want to wear. Idiotic. What's next, no more long beards cause they remind us of extremists!? No more turbans? No more scarfs? No more mosques? No more talking to eachother in arabic!?

Ah well... more and more the west is losing it's freedoms and tolerance... something 'we' feared would come from islamic influence yet we do it upon ourselfs(!) Xenophobic bunch of idiots...

I was there, the big BNB blackout of november, 2008. We lost many that day...

In a school I completely agree a burka is unsuitable in a Western society, however it seems many women actually want to wear one and to ban it is against their human right. You know the thing the EU is always going on about. I imagine this wouldn't hold up to scrutiny.

I agree with Yi. If it's forced (even undirectly) it's oppressive but the truth is, many women who wear one are educated and don't feel oppressed. It's the uneducated women who wear burkas we should be concerned about.

gasteropod wrote:It only annoys me when they don't have to abide by work uniform like the rest of us, there's a girl at work who wears one and basically all her own clothes whilst I'm looking like a tit in a shirt and tie, not fair.

Kind of connected. I've always found it annoying blokes are expected to wear shirt and trousers yet women can basically wear what they'd wear out on a Friday evening.

Kind of ironic really, stop women being oppressed because of restrictions on what they can wear... by restricting what they can wear.

Yi-Long wrote:I think it's ridiculous that we are now banning people from wearing the clothes they want to wear. Idiotic. What's next, no more long beards cause they remind us of extremists!? No more turbans? No more scarfs? No more mosques? No more talking to eachother in arabic!? Ah well... more and more the west is losing it's freedoms and tolerance... something 'we' feared would come from islamic influence yet we do it upon ourselfs(!) Xenophobic bunch of idiots...

What a load of trash. A burqa is not religious wear; it's a symbol of misogynist cultural oppression. You might want to see women forced (either by threat of violence or systematic brainwashing) to walk down the street like this...

Yi-Long wrote:I think it's ridiculous that we are now banning people from wearing the clothes they want to wear. Idiotic. What's next, no more long beards cause they remind us of extremists!? No more turbans? No more scarfs? No more mosques? No more talking to eachother in arabic!? Ah well... more and more the west is losing it's freedoms and tolerance... something 'we' feared would come from islamic influence yet we do it upon ourselfs(!) Xenophobic bunch of idiots...

What a load of trash. A burqa is not religious wear; it's a symbol of misogynist cultural oppression. You might want to see women forced (either by threat of violence or systematic brainwashing) to walk down the street like this...

Ofcourse not. And we live in countries where women can stand up to such pressures, by seeking help, by divorcing, by going to the police, etc etc.

However, I also do not want the government deciding for us what we can and can not wear. There ARE women who wear a burqa out of free will. There ARE many women who WANT to wear a scarf.

If that's ridiculous or not, isn't up to me to decide. It's their choice. Not mine. Not the governments. So as long as it's a FREE choice, I don't think it's anyone else's business what these women want to wear.

If it's not out of free will, we will have to make sure that these women get the message that they have rights, just as anyone else in this country, and they can NOT be forced by ANYONE to wear those clothes.

Anyway, this new law will just have the opposite effect. The burqa-opposers will tell you they're doing it for the benefit of these surpressed women. Lets get real now. The few women that ARE surpressed by their husbands and/or families to wear a burqa, will from now on just be forced to stay indoors. They will be surpressed even more than before.

The vast majority of burqa wearers who did wear them out of free will, will feel targeted by this new law, they can no longer dress they way they WANT to dress, and there's the very slight possibility that they will now seek to show their religious beliefs in other, maybe more extreme, ways, in order to still be able to showcase their commitment to their god.

Ow, and for those who are affraid terrorists would dress up in a burqa and blow up a bus or a train: yeah, they COULD do that. Or they can just pack a bomb in a suitcase, or a backback, or strapped under their sweater, or whatever. If you have plans to blow the shit out of everything, including yourself, you certainly aren't going to reconsider when you can't wear a fucking burqa.

The only thing oppressive shit like this will accomplish is to make muslims feel more and more singled out as a threat and as an unwanted, unrespected, misunderstood part of society. Guess what!? That's just going to widen the gap between normal people and muslims, and the bigger that distance becomes, the easier it will be to convince some of those muslims that 'the west' hates them and everything about them, and the easier it will be to radicalize them.

I was there, the big BNB blackout of november, 2008. We lost many that day...

Some very good points from Yi. I don't think women should be FORCED to wear burqas or do anything they don't want as this IS oppressive and misoginyst, but there ARE some women who want to wear it and say its their choice etc. But you cant ban it for some and not others. This law could have the opposite effect.Is it being banned in PUBLIC or everywhere?I've seen a few women in burqas in my town centre - doesnt bother me I just think its hard to see where you're going wearing one dressed as a ninja

Markgway wrote:What a load of trash. A burqa is not religious wear; it's a symbol of misogynist cultural oppression.

It's both! Depending who're you're asking. There have been several women on TV lately who say it's religious clothing and don't come across as being oppressed at all.

As I said earlier, it's the uneducated women (who're being oppressed whatever they wear) who we should be concerned about. Not the clothing in particular. You may not/we may not feel comfortable seeing women wear it but it is their human right. It's not the clothes that are really the problem but the fact Islam to a large extent teaches men to oppress women, not just in what they wear, in how they act around other men, in all manner of ways. It's this we need to teach Western Islamic women, that they have a choice and if they still wish to act the same way, so be it.

Again as I said earlier, the only time I'd have an issue with it, is if women were wearing one teaching children.

Anyway, this new law will just have the opposite effect. The burqa-opposers will tell you they're doing it for the benefit of these surpressed women. Lets get real now. The few women that ARE surpressed by their husbands and/or families to wear a burqa, will from now on just be forced to stay indoors. They will be suppressed even more than before.

Yi-Long wrote:And we live in countries where women can stand up to such pressures, by seeking help, by divorcing, by going to the police, etc etc.

Like that's going to happen? Do you read the papers or just skip to the cartoons. Many women are afraid of their husbands, brothers, uncles, cousins, etc... It's extremely difficult for women to go against the Muslim community. The ones who claim they're 'choosing' to wear a burqa are brainwashed into believing that it's their religious duty. It isn't. The terms 'burqa' and 'free will' don't go together. And as long as woolly liberal thinking backs these archaic views up the oppression will continue.

The only thing oppressive shit like this will accomplish is to make muslims feel more and more singled out as a threat and as an unwanted, unrespected, misunderstood part of society.

Bradavon: As probably the only guy on this forum who has snogged another man (3 times in fact), it didn't do a lot for me but I didn't hate it either. Who doesn't like a snog?

Markgway wrote:What a load of trash. A burqa is not religious wear; it's a symbol of misogynist cultural oppression. You might want to see women forced (either by threat of violence or systematic brainwashing) to walk down the street like this...

Thanks for writing 'women' and not 'Muslim women', because the fact that many women are afraid of their husbands is not limited to Muslim society. Don't know about the UK, but in Germany there are many domestic violence shelters for battered women. Not going by the cliché of the British gentleman attitude, I can only assume that there is domestic violence with English people just like there is with Germans.

I don't know, but let's say there was no Hollywood and people in Muslim countries had no clue about the Western world, culture etc. and I showed them documentaries about all the negatives in the West, running 24/7 on TV, what would they think? But if we are being honest, most people who never actually have been to Europe or America, get most their info from movies and as we all know there are hundreds of thousands of films, treating all aspects of society, the good, the bad and the ugly. It is produced by the West.

But here, all the info Joe Public gets on the Muslim world is not produced by Muslims. It is also produced by the West. So I don't blame anybody for having a negative opinion. Personally, I tend to shut the fuck up if I don't know anything about a topic or at least try not to be judgemental.

Also, staying on topic here, I am against the burka, but only from a religious point of view. If we are talking about the appraised value of freedom which I hear Western politicians talking about all the time, then I am against banning them. Let people wear whatever the fuck they want.

bradavon wrote:If it's forced (even undirectly) it's oppressive but the truth is, many women who wear one are educated and don't feel oppressed. It's the uneducated women who wear burkas we should be concerned about.

Concerned about how? Like they shouldn't have the right to wear whatever they want because they aren't educated?

bradavon wrote:You may not/we may not feel comfortable seeing women wear it but it is their human right.

That's exactly the point. It's anybody's right not to like it, but that isn't the issue at all and it doesn't matter if you like it or not. Hell, nobody cares if I am disturbed by people walking around half-naked. It's their right though (in Germany anyway).

It's not the clothes that are really the problem but the fact Islam to a large extent teaches men to oppress women, not just in what they wear, in how they act around other men, in all manner of ways.

Just out of interest, on what statistic are you basing the above, since you wrote it as if it was a fact.

Sadly the UK has its fair share of domestic violence; it's not a Muslim phenomenon by any means. Christian and Jewish females get battered and bruised, and live in fear from abusive men same as anyone else. Of course that's not to say that there isn't a cultural dimension which has been fuelled by religion (or more aptly bastardisation of religion) that afflicts Muslims. Cultural abuse of women is a problem particular to Muslims that needs to be addressed. Pretending it doesn't exist for sake of political correctness only hurts the innocent. The burka is a symbol of oppression, that's its only purpose. It doesn't belong on any women - Muslim or not.

Bradavon: As probably the only guy on this forum who has snogged another man (3 times in fact), it didn't do a lot for me but I didn't hate it either. Who doesn't like a snog?

This is an old thread, but right now there's controversy in France over women wearing a "burkini" at the beach - France tried to ban it but human rights lawyers (in one place at least) have decided the ban was illegal.